LITTLE GADDESDEN. 287 



stacks or ricks, we also got to see at Eaton and Edgeborough, 

 and at other farms, another build of ricks, which was as 

 follows:— The rick, or the crop itself, was set on a 

 staddle, botten, of twigs, which staddle stood on six 

 posts of wood. The height of each post was 8 feet. In 

 the middle of the same, or 4 feet from the ground, was a 

 tin-plate of 6 inches broad, bent round the post to hinder 

 the ascent of mice to the rick. At the upper ends the 

 posts were cut in tenons, fitted into mortises in the 

 horizontal beams which lay on them, and formed the 

 bottom of the stack, or rick-staddle. Down at the 

 ground these posts stood on logs, so that they might not 

 be rotted away at the ends from the moistness of the 

 ground. On the top the stack was very well thatched 

 with straw. Commonly, these stacks were of the 

 four-sided shape (as in Fig. p. 266 orig.). A dead rook 

 was mostly hung thereupon to frighten others of the 

 same kind. In these stacks there was the advantage 

 that they could also be used as a skeel and shed, skjul 

 OCh. lider, to keep all different kinds of implements under 

 for rain, for carts, ploughs, harrows, &c, were commonly 

 placed under them ; but then it was necessary to look 

 carefully to it that none of these implements were so 

 arranged that they could serve the mice as a ladder up 

 to the stack. These and many kinds of ricks were used 

 only by those who had large farms, or gardar, may be 

 of very many acres, for those who were small farmers or 

 Landtman, had no need of such, because they soon 

 arrived at the stage of thrashing out their crops. 



[T. I. p. 284.J Saten, at sitta pa vid spisar. 



Settles, to sit on by the fire-places. 



At the taverns or inns, krogarna, it was the custom 

 that the carls sat by and around the hearth and either 

 smoked tobacco or drank. It has been said before, that 



